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War, revolution, and psychoanalysis: Freudian thought begins to grapple with social reality
Author(s) -
Hoffman Louise E.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(198104)17:2<251::aid-jhbs2300170214>3.0.co;2-u
Subject(s) - instinct , metapsychology , psychoanalytic theory , psychoanalysis , id, ego and super ego , aggression , freudian slip , articulation (sociology) , ego psychology , psychology , epistemology , sociology , philosophy , social psychology , politics , law , evolutionary biology , political science , biology
Psychoanalytic theory and practice have been affected by external events as well as by internal development. Specifically, the period of the Great War and its aftermath was a turning point in the history of psychoanalysis. These experiences emphasized the inadequacy of the libido theory alone, accelerated Freud's impetus toward metapsychology, and encouraged the articulation of theories of innate destructive urges, of ego instincts, of the superego, and of social interaction. Discussionsof war neuroses, of aggression and the death instinct, of the reality principle, and of the mechanisms of social psychology undermined Freud's original biologism in favor of a social‐scientific approach. Psychoanalytic theory began to take more account of social experience and was profoundly changed in the process.